Flower Box Award: Mama's Food Shop, 200 E. 3rd Street

Use What'cha Got. With the end of the holidays, it's not easy to find great flowerboxes around the city. However, on this drippy warm morning, we came across this precious little scene.

Mama's Food Shop on East 3rd Street and Avenue B has put out some of their lush succulents on the sidewalk for a little fresh air and water (as fresh as it can be in our fair city), before things turn icy later today. As I rode my bike by, wedged between two honking taxis, I thought to myself that this was something of a small-town scene, and I suddenly felt sweet.

It was a humble sight - almost human, almost as if to say that they know plants like to get out and play in the rain sometimes too. skgr